November 2008 Archives

There are many sects that base their view of the world on the fact that Christ is not God. There are a number of different strategies for attacking Christ’s deity. Some reinterpret the Scriptures to shade the meanings differently than the context indicates, sometimes even going so far as inserting new words into the text. Others use a rational argument that attempts to first oversimplify belief in the trinity to make it seem that Christian’s believe in three Gods (a “straw man” argument, since we believe in a singular God) and then attack it from Scriptures, such as Deuteronomy 6:4, which point out that God is one. Regardless, of the attack, however, I’m not moved by the argument. God is one and Jesus Christ is God.

A passage that does not stand on it’s own, but is what I consider to the be summary passage for Christ’s deity is found in John 1:1-3,14: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The book of John is about the Word, who is Jesus Christ. In the words of J.C. Ryle in his commentary on John, “[Jesus] is not merely a created angel, or a being inferior to God the Father, and invested by Him with power to redeem sinners. He is nothing less than perfect God,—equal to the Father as touching His Godhead,—God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds.”

Some have tried to say that it would be more appropriate to translate the passage, “the Word was a God.” According to John MacArthur, this isn’t correct. “The Greek construction emphasizes that the Word had all the essence or attributes of deity, i.e., Jesus the Messiah was fully God.” The MacArthur Bible Commentary refers us to Colossians 2:9, where Paul is attempting to clarify just this point, starting with verse 8: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” Jesus Christ is God.

Yet, this is not the end of the story. Jesus Christ also “became flesh and dwelt among us.” God didn’t stand outside the creation after the fall, but entered in to it in order that he might rescue it. In the words of Jesus in John 3:16 and forward: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

Jesus Christ is God and came to earth at the pivot point in history. He came to demonstrate what a good religion is, to share the truth about God and the utterly sinful nature of men and women, to minister to those in need, to rebuke those who pretend to good religion, to give his life up on the cross to take away that sin, and to resurrected himself to demonstrate his power over death and sin.

One of the marvels of God is this: You don’t have to accept any of this. It is clear that such a decision is yours to make as you are led to make it. I plead with you to consider belief in Christ as the God-man who can take away your sin very carefully. As Joshua gave a choice to the people of Israel, so we too have a choice: “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15) The choice to believe is yours to make. I pray that if you are led to believe, that you would pray for true belief and seek out others that believe to help you grow in that belief. If you already believe, I encourage you to cling ever tighter to the faith and I look forward to worshiping beside you in the eternity before us.

Cheers.

The word of 2007 was “surge.” The word of 2008 is “bailout.” I want to say that all this bailing out and buying up of commercial stock and debt by the government is pretty foolish. The U.S. Government is now creating massive budget deficits (i.e. borrowing money) to replace private deficits (borrowed money) created when government run financial institutions (Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, established via Carter-era housing legislation) made bad decisions. Essentially we’re throwing good money after bad, which is going to cause big problems in the long run.

The expanded calls to now bailout the U.S. auto industry for making bad decisions in its own industry and the idea that such bailouts should come with new government mandates is an even bigger issue. This is incrementally moving us closer to communism where the central planners pick and choose how everything runs. This means we will get one-size-fits-all solutions that fit no one well. It also creates a single point of failure for decision making where mistakes made by a small core of leaders get to have massive repercussions (see the current mortgage crisis is just such an event).

I believe the U.S. Government’s current fiscal policy is ridiculous and foolish. Looking back through history, bad decisions dealing with debt on a similar scale was a major contributor to the causes of World War II and I don’t doubt that such an event may now loom on the horizon again.

A lot of folks are drawing parallels between President-elect Barack Obama and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Many see this as a positive comparison and, given Obama’s announcement of infrastructure development plans, there certainly seems to be some similarity. Just remember, Roosevelt was a charismatic leader that presided over a 10 year slump in the economy. Some argue that his policies were a good portion of the reason for the length of that slump. His Presidency also ended in world war. I dearly hope that history does not repeat itself in this way, but things aren’t looking good for the home team.

Fortunately, while I don’t relish the thought of hardship, I know my God is sovereign and true and am not worried. There are worse things than economic hard times and war and death one can face. In the words of Jesus recorded in Luke 12:4-5, “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!”

Cheers.

Life sucks. Reading my previous few rants, one might get the impression that I’m ticked off, gloomy, and upset. You might wonder if I’m depressed or sad that “my side” lost the election or angry that people voted for someone I think is the absolute wrong move. You’d be wrong. I may have strong feelings and opinions on these other subjects, but I’m actually pretty happy. Why am I happy?

I’ve got a good job at the moment and I can say without hesitation that I’m economically better off now than I was 6 months ago, a year ago, or 5 years ago, despite the losses in my 401k/403b and other investments. Of course, I can’t be sure I’ll keep any of it. And who knows what the future holds, but I’m happy anyway.

I have an adorable almost-two-year-old to entertain me. Someday he’s going to grow up into a teenager and probably cause me a large amount of grief (who doesn’t cause their parents grief as a teenager). At some point, Lord willing, he’ll have to start making his own decisions in life and he might choose to do something I find wrong and unthinkable. But, sometimes that’s how things go. A father can only do his best and then his son gets to make his own mind up on how to live.

I have a wife who does wonderful things for me. She cooks and is very diligent at taking care of me. She works very hard and I’m proud of her many accomplishments. Sometimes we disagree and have petty fights and such, but as bad as things could get, I’m not anxious.

If my happiness in life were dependent upon my employment or even my health and ability to provide for my family, I could easily be let down by layoffs, illness, or injury. If my joy was in my wife or son or family or friends or church or coworkers or any other group I take part in, any of them may prove false and betray my trust or simply abandon me. If I were only happy when politics were going my way, during times of peace and prosperity, if the man I elected is doing wonderful things, I should probably despair and die. I have yet to be fully satisfied with the work of any politician I’ve ever voted for, let alone the ones that win that I voted against.

My happiness would go up and down if it depended on these or any number of other things, but I try to keep a certain blessed happiness and laughter close by always. Jesus Christ is the source of my joy. If you want to make me a grim person, you could by ruining all of the things above and work to destroy everything else I hold dear, but I would still hold at my core a fierce optimism because of my love for Jesus Christ and the knowledge that someday, sooner or later, I will be united physically and spiritually with my Lord-Creator. That’s a joy that cannot be taken away.

Cheers.

With three weeks to go in the election, I caught a cab early in the morning from my hotel in Pittsburgh to head to the airport after the Pittsburgh Perl Workshop. One thing I really love about Pittsburgh is their cab drivers. On this trip to PIT, I met a German immigrant who started the conversation by saying, “I just can’t wait until this election is over.” I was pretty sure he and I were going to cast opposite votes as far as the presidential election was concerned, but I agreed wholeheartedly with him on this: “I can’t wait either.”

Why did I get tired of the election? It was a number of things. The primaries started way too early. I didn’t really have a candidate to root for, just candidates to root against. Most of all, though, I don’t like the tone of the discussion that occurred. In fact, there wasn’t much discussion at all.

In this election, if you didn’t agree with the candidate someone else chose, it wasn’t because you had a different ideology or potentially legitimate concern, you were just an idiot and probably a bigot. This makes debate impossible because the only way debate happens is if you look at your opponents point of view to try and find where that view is valuable, contrast it with your own viewpoint, and then determine which is better and why. Of course, no one has time to do this all the time, but it is a good exercise to be in as much as you can if you want to continue to sharpen and strengthen your own position. When you start with the assumption that your opponent has nothing of value because he’s stupid or bigoted, you’ve cheated yourself out of the ability to determine the truth of your assertion. This latter sentiment seemed to me to be more prevalent than usual in this election.

It played itself out in a rather disturbing way when it came to the running mate of John McCain. For example, there was, early on, a popular video of Matt Damon saying that the choice of Sarah Palin was like a bad Disney movie and wondered if she really believed that dinosaurs walked around on earth 6,000 years ago. The implication is that no one but an utter moron could possibly believe such a thing. Therefore, everything she believes must be utterly moronic. This sums up my perception of the tone of criticism of her and anyone who agreed with any part of her platform.

Rather than confronting her views and saying, “She’s wrong. This is why.” The response was instead, “She’s stupid. Ignore her.” Instead of trying to figure out why she believes such things, I saw people ridiculing her northern accent. Instead of refuting her positions, people were ranting about how she pronounced the word “nuclear.” Some of these concerns were espoused by people I consider very intelligent and capable thinkers in other contexts. The majority of Palin’s ideas aren’t that controversial at all. She values family and friends. She believes in a strong work ethic. The things that are most important to nearly everyone are most important to her. The positions she holds that are debated are just a different way of viewing reality, not frank stupidity. She sees the world differently.

Similarly, “refutations” of some of my suggestions of why Obama might not be a good president were phrased using words like “ridiculous” and “puhleese.” This is language designed to suggest I was just an idiot without valuable input. They weren’t an attempt at rational discussion and debate. With this kind of response, I’m not even permitted to agree to disagree. Instead, I’m a dumb bigot hater whose trying to force my ideology on others. Yet, I don’t hate anyone. Disagreeing about which human behaviors and rights and entitlements should be granted or forbidden by government does not make me a hater anymore than having a more “open” viewpoint prevents them from being a hater.

It is so easy to just point at the other side and demagogically state, “Duh! He’s stupid.” It is not easy to look carefully, consider why that viewpoint is held, and then reply, “Well, he may be right on this point, but he’s wrong for all these other reasons.” We may disagree, but at least we’ve held a discussion. I may not be the best at this myself, but I really have tried.

For me, it came down to this in the election. Too many people have a very narrow definition of tolerance. When many say the world “tolerance” they mean, “I will tolerate your different point of view until you tell me I’m wrong. At that point you are a stupid bigot hater. Go to hell.” This is false tolerance. True tolerance is one that states instead, “I looked over your point of view and I’m not moved by your arguments. I disagree and I will fight you for the hearts and minds of others. May the best ideal win.” That’s idealistic, but that’s the world I long for.

Cheers.

I’ve tried a few times to sum up my beliefs and why I’m going to vote the way I’m going to vote, but I haven’t been able to write it as well as I want. Fortunately, the Interwebs are full of well-written articles that speak my mind. As such, I’m presenting this list of articles to explain my positions and why I will vote the way I vote.

• Foreign Policy: Is America really going to do this?
• Campaign Finance: With $605 million already, Obama asks only $10 more from each of us
• Taxes: If it redistributes like a duck …
• Economics: John McCain Warned Of Mortgage Collapse In 2005
• Abortion: Obama’s Abortion Extremism
• Special Needs: Kurt In Pittsburgh, the Palins, the McCains, and a Down-Syndrome Child
• Abortion: Trig Palin’s threat to the abortion industry
• Ideology: Pinch Yourself

That’s quite enough to convince me I’m making the correct decision.

Cheers.